CCC: cleverpun's Critique Corner #34 — She Kills Monsters · 12:57am Dec 27th, 2019
For today’s critique, I am continuing my look at the entrants in the Imposing Sovereign’s II contest. I figured I would do the winners first. I’ve already covered the 1st place entry, so today I’d like to discuss the second place finisher.
Title: She Kills Monsters
Author: Chiko
Found via: That contest what I judged.
Short summary: Sweetie Belle died. Rarity has not recovered. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo bring her Sweetie’s journal, containing a custom Ogres and Oubliettes module. Rarity finds some telling things within, about herself, her sister, and their relationships with everyone around them.
Genre(s): Drama, Character Piece, Crossover (apparently it was based on a play with a similar plot)
The Title/Description: The title and description are both good. I suppose the title being good should not surprise me, since it is directly copied from the play this story is referencing.
The description actually used to be longer; I marked in my notes that the short description was more evocative due to its length. I’m glad to see the author changed the long description to match the short one.
What does this story do well?: This story has a very careful tone. It is grounded deeply in reality. While melodrama does occasionally rear its head, the story generally does an excellent job of making its world and characters believable. Even the fantasy world we explore, for all its sirens and ice golems, doesn’t clash at all with this deliberate mood. It is difficult to get Slice of Life Drama right; fiction generally plays with much bigger emotions and much grander losses than are portrayed here. But the contemplative and naturalistic way that the characters and their emotions are presented is subtle yet effective.
All the characters feel believable and grounded. Their emotions don’t feel like they are being forced for the story. The story does a good job of showing these emotions (mostly), giving both the audience and the characters the respect such weighty emotions deserve.
These and other factors combine to make the character moments wonderful to watch unfold. Ultimately, the story is very light on plot. There is the throughline of Rarity’s emotional state, and there is a sort of running checklist of all the friends and family in Sweetie’s life. But the story is driven by all these character moments more than anything.
I made note after note of moments that sat with me well after the story was over. Piper’s scene, the meeting with Silver Spoon in the restaurant, Rarity confronting Sweetie about her grades. Even the meta-aspects of Ogres and Oubliettes join in on this; “My sis does not talk like that” gave me a good chuckle. I could go on and on listing these moments, but the story is full of them. If I had to pick out a single moment that stuck with me more than any other, the scene transition in chapter twenty-five takes that difficult award. It starts out as light sibling banter, and indeed it even made me chuckle a bit. Then it smash cuts to a completely different scene and mood. The sharp contrast it creates and the emotional whiplash it caused me may be one of the most devastating things I’ve felt from a fanfic.
Where could this story improve?: Despite the excellent show present for the majority of the story, there is some telling/bluntness present, as well as some consistent typos. Some of these tell-y bits are small; stuff like:
Rarity said, missing the faux pas of her statement entirely
Rarity thought about what she had heard.
Scootaloo wasn’t all too sure how to approach this interaction herself.
There are other times, however, when the story is blunt at some rather inopportune times. Stuff like
"I'm not your little sister," Twilight snapped, letting it out in the open.
would serve the story so much better without that last clause. And the matter of Sweetie’s orientation starts out being foreshadowed somewhat subtly, but then takes a swift turn into blunt over-statement. I almost hesitate to point this out. After all, stories need some telling in order to avoid being obtuse. But this story does it at some very misplaced times.
The story also has a vague timeframe. It flip flops frequently between flashback and present day. It doesn’t always do this with clarity, however, and it makes some scenes harder to grok than they need to be. Rarity going out on the town with Sunset, and telling her parents about Sweetie being a lesbian are the two spots where this was the most noticeable.
Finally, I had some difficulty accepting some of the headcanon present about some of the characters. Rarity having a messy car is a minor detail, only used to set up a single scene. Sweetie being a nerdy gamer girl, however, is a significant departure from her characterization in the show. Yes, her Equestria Girls counterpart gets basically no screen time, and her playing DnD OnO is necessary for the entire premise to work. But the fact that she has a gaming PC, is bad at gym, has less-than-stellar hygiene, and yet still has her affinity for choir from the show is all a little much. There's a lot of nerd stereotypes being mixed in with her show characterization, and it’s a lot to take in. Instead of it coming off as a complex characterization of a true-to-life person, it feels more like an inelegant mishmash of headcanon and the show. All these details are hardly mutually exclusive, but for some reason it was hard to swallow.
In a single sentence: Wonderful character moments wrapped up in realistic tone and emotions, with some minor hiccups in terms of bluntness and characterization.
Verdict: Upvote. I regretfully have not seen the play, so I cannot be sure how much this story cribs/rips off/plagiarizes from its crossover source. The story, however, is not really about the premise. The DnD OnO subplot acts as a good mirror to the real world, amplifying and reflecting Sweetie’s feelings about it. But it’s just a metaphor, and the story could almost have worked exactly the same without it.
There is a grounded realism here that is not often seen in fiction, let alone fanfiction. I don’t like to hypothesize about authors from their stories, but I get a feeling of genuine loss from this. Even with the areas of improvement I noted, and the smattering of typos, this is a story that is well worth recommending.
You can, and I have, find the text online. I had similar reservations, but I'm pleased to say this takes nothing but the "playing D&D to get over a loss" setup from the original.
This was one of the few stories I've read recently that really stuck with me after I'd finished it. It was just so real that it was hard not to have some genuine heartache. There were plenty of times when I just wanted to reach through the screen and give Rarity a hug, or something. The criticisms here are also valid, but they detract so little from the story's impact that I barely noticed them while reading.
I voiced the same concern in the story's comment section, and Chiko said that the original was a comedy more than anything and focused primarily around the D&D/O&O aspect—there are no flashback scenes in the play whatsoever, from what I've gleaned. Still, I haven't seen the production either, so grain of salt and all.
Hopefully I'll have time to read The Joy Hive before your next critique. It's been on my radar since before the contest results were announced, so I should really get to it.
So I knew this would be an issue. I'll be fully honest about everything that I can recall that appears in both the play and the fic. Another comment will address the critiques, which I'll simply say are perfectly valid, and I'll keep in mind for future works, and other stray thoughts I had.
So the biggest thing I
stoleused were the deceased sister leaving behind a DnD notebook/diary, and her older sister discovering that her sister was gay through it. I consider that the full premise of the story because the undercurrent of both stories are the older sibling learning and accepting who her little sister really was. Erasing the sexuality aspect was not an option to me, especially as someone who champions the perspectives of LGBT+ people in storytelling.In fact, the origin of the story is about me absolutely hating how the LGBT element was handled. The only actual gay character is dead, and her love interest kinda shrugs it off as "Maybe I could've been into girls, but we were just friends. I loved her, but as a friend though." Then the play ends with the older sister getting married to a man because her inner conflict was that she wasn't ready for the commitment. Don't even get me started on how the sisters felt more like roommates than actual siblings.
During research, I found that a revised re-release of the play from around 2016 actually changes this to where the love interest is gay, but the younger sister has an unconfirmed sexuality and the older sister doesn't get married at the end. So... progress?
Bullies who say d*ke.
Instead of sirens they're succubi in the play. The scene where this happens is kinda played for laughs in weird and uncomfortable way. Those characters are so excessively cruel, yet the way they're written I think they're supposed to be funny in their over the top valley-girl portrayal. I honestly felt the tonal decision for the play was just wrong. It's extremely heavy subject matter, yet it's a joke fest and is sometimes at the younger sister's expense.
To elaborate, the whole "Diana" chapter is a story about two lesbians who are outed before they are ready. One makes the snap decision to retreat into the closet, leaving the other heartbroken and alone in the open. Then the next few chapters recontextualize the role of the bullies. In contrast, the succubi taunt and tease the younger sister, and shove her onto her older sister, saying "go make out with your sister" (and some audiences actually laugh at this). Then the bullies are just as cruel in the real world. They get told off for being jerks, but that's as far as the play goes with them.
Fair warning, the things marked spoilers gets dark.
So why did I keep it when I changed almost everything else?
Fuck it, the story's already emotionally raw. That little book of hateful words existed at some point. The words "Hopeless" and "Fa**ot" appeared in it a lot, too. Eventually, and thankfully, those words lost all meaning to me. I think everyone's noticed that the power of words is a very important motif in the story. The play uses it because it's a hurtful word, and it's shocking.
I wrote in a comment once that I rewrote that "Diana" chapter several times. That was me working through my experience of being outed at fifteen. One such version included the sirens slowly ripping off Renee's limbs, stripping her identity. That chapter was always meant to be brutally in your face with the metaphor.
The play on the other hand literally includes a scene where the older sister tries to force her younger sister's love interest to admit that she's gay.
And it's fucking played for laughs.I think you can see why I kept it and did something else with the concept.Character parallels between fantasy story and real world.
I mean, it's been done before many times from Peter Pan's Captain Hook to The Lego Movie's Lord Business using the villain as an analogue to the father. It's not a new concept, but I thought I would note it for posterity. The way it's used in the play is for jokes mostly or aren't all that explored. The older sister's boyfriend is a slime cube because she doesn't like him, the evil bullies are evil succubi, and the dork Steve is just a dork named Steve, and so on and so forth. I desperately wanted to see how the younger sister represented her older sibling, but that was surprisingly absent from the original play.
To summarize, Yes, it's the premise, certain characters filling the same roles, and one major plot point, that are lifted from the story. The reason I kept it was to tell my experience with being outed, and I explore that concept in a different way than the play does. I kept the title because I do not fear the comparison or cross examination. Its existence is indebted to the play, but I go my own direction.
Should it disqualify me, so be it. I never expected to actually place or win any cash. The prompt really was just the perfect storm to get this story out of my head after years. Had the word limit been set to 12k or even 20k words, I probably wouldn't have written it. For some reason, 15k was just the exact amount I knew I needed. I've yet to respond to FOME about the prize money, but I'm just gonna go with my gut instinct and ask them to donate it. Sorry for any controversy my story caused. As PresentPerfect said, you can find the text online and make a judgement yourself.
For someone who believes in death of the author, I sure am explaining a lot.
And we haven't even gotten to that part yet.
I wasn't kidding when I said I was gonna try not to cry.Thank you for taking the time to write this. I genuinely do mean it. I'm so sorry for turning this comment into a therapy session and basically ignoring every actual criticism you made. I'll be as sure to make the effort to consider all the times I'm telling and if it detracts from the moment. I'll keep extra care to how my own headcanons affect characterization. You're right, I do ask a lot of the reader for Sweetie Belle's characterization.
I hope you don't mind, but I do want to ask what moment Sweetie's orientation clicked for you? And especially what point it felt like overstatement. It'll help clue into how to get better. Because I know that "I don't want to come out" line is especially obvious to the point where I had debated on removing it for a long while. I just wanted one definitive line so that people in the cheap seats got what was going on. But if I need to have more trust in the reader, then that's a perfectly valid response that I can internalize and do better on.
Again, thank you for this.
I'd save this before I eventually come to my senses and delete it...
5175788 I did find the play online, but I did not want to pay for a copy.
As I noted in the review, the story could have worked perfectly well without the gimmick of the premise. I only really noted this because I have seen many crossover in the past that outright plagiarize their sources, and wanted to cover my bases.
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I also felt that the "areas of improvement" I listed here did not detract from the story that much. Unfortunately, due to the nature of criticism on the internet, it is often difficult to say anything negative without overshadowing the positives. This is why I started adding the "verdict" section to my reviews. I wanted to make it clear how I felt about something, regardless of how long that "areas of improvement" section got, or how it compared to the "strengths" section.
5175895 From the minor research I did, there wasn't any real evidence of plagiarism going on. As I mentioned, this story could have worked perfectly fine without the premise of the play being present at all, and so I didn't have any real concerns about it, even not having read the play.
I see now that I worded that too harshly. Our fandom has had significant problems in the past with plagiarism, as well as "crossovers" being excuses to rip off ideas. I didn't really have any suspicions of that here, I just wanted to make a note of it to cover my bases. Clearly, however, my paranoia has worked to my detriment, as well as the detriment of my critique.
I also feel the need to point out that this review is not coming from an "official" position. I stopped being a judge when I handed in my scores and blurbs.
From what you and others have told me, it sounds like all the divergences from the inspiration were perfectly justified. Again, I haven't read or seen the play, but it sounds like all the criticisms you have of it are perfectly reasonable and well-thought-out. The fantasy versions of the characters being caricatures or cartoonish makes sense: after all, that's the entire point. But while I found Diana and Sylvia a little blunt, it sounds like the succubi from the actual play are an order of magnitude beyond that; more blunt plot device than character.
A lot of the concepts shared between the play and your story certainly are well-traveled ideas. Again, I'd like to apologize for my unfounded suspicions and paranoia, and any undue stress it might have caused you.
For me, the line it became obvious was at the end of chapter fifteen;
Then, during the very next chapter, we get into the "hopeless dyke" stuff. I felt this contrast was rather extreme. The "I don't want to come out" line didn't even stand out to me; I'll admit it went right over my head. (There's perhaps an irony that I'm criticizing a lack of subtlety and yet missed that.
)
As you said, however, words are powerful things. This contrast was no doubt intentional. Perhaps the unease and irritation I felt was an intended reaction. There are certainly other contrasts in the story that are just as unsubtle, but I look on with fondness because of their starkness. Piper's chapter ends with a rather blunt contrast, but that makes it powerful. And again, that scene transition in chapter 25...
It's fine. Writing is a difficult beast. It simultaneously demands that an author be detached from their world and view it objectively as possible, as well as being intimately familiar with and attached to it. That old saying—"murder your darlings"—is worded that way for a reason.
I've had stories that made me sick to my stomach to write. One of them is even on this site: I rushed through the ending of I Am Not the Actor because writing it depressed me. I tacked on a sloppy conclusion to it, because I was tired of causing so much pain to the characters in it. On the surface, that's a monumentally silly idea. But to a writer, injecting some of our own soul into a work is a necessary evil. It makes us vulnerable, but it is also what makes fiction so powerful.
I also believe in Death of the Author, but I have no illusions about who writes a story, who all those seeds of analysis were first planted by.
Ultimately, writing is a very subjective process. Please do not take anything I've said, in either this comment or in my critique, as the last word. In another review, I once wrote as my major criticism that the story was too subtle. But the entire point of the story was built on a mystery, on the line between knowing and not knowing. It was an intentionally subtle story. If the author had listened to me and made it less subtle, it would have undermined the central idea and themes, destroyed everything that made the story good. Solid evidence that I only pretend to know what I'm talking about.
I've also had authors with much more severe reactions to my criticisms, so I can assure that I am not offended or demoralized by your reaction.
In fact, I love when authors take the time to engage with my humble blogs. I consider discussion, especially of powerful topics, to be one of the most important things fiction can create.
As I said, the power of your story made me suspect that it had an element of personal reality embedded in it. Thank you for sharing it; but I think your story did a wonderful job of sharing it too.
If you have anything else you want to say, about your story, my critique, the intersection between the two, or whatever else, I am always happy to listen.
(And don't worry, there are so many mirrors and archives of FIMfic that your story is forever stuck on the internet now.)
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No worries.
I totally get that it would be a bad look if a "stolen" story placed so high. I'm just also really paranoid.
Also, you made the same point in another comment, but I figured I should say so, too. The criticisms I made about the stage play doesn't mean I dislike it. I actually like it a lot. The play's actually pretty funny and clever in bits. And I would not have written this story if I didn't have some personal connection to it. I just strongly disagree with its priorities in tone and its handling of the non-straight characters and the subtext it creates. Though, with the subject matter, I wouldn't be surprised if humor was the selling point for people to buy into the high concept.
Considering the changes made in the revised version that's specifically made for teenage audiences, I have a feeling the author was made aware of those problematic aspects and genuinely tried to do better, especially for a more impressionable audience.
Dope! That's exactly where I want the connection to be made. And yeah, I do throw subtlety out the window for the next few chapters. Whether or not it works for you is perfectly valid stance to take. It's a decision, and you recognized it and gave me your honest feelings on said decision. That's all anyone can really ask for in critique even if I personally disagree and stand with the bluntness. It is something valuable to consider, though.
And hey, don't sell yourself short. You caught the short description being better faster than I did. I try to value all critique, especially ones made in good faith. I've been in the game long enough to recognize criticism worth considering. I genuinely am gonna make an effort about the tell-y bits in the prose, because I definitely see your point in how it can hamper the strength of moments or come off as awkward.
And I'm not all that demoralized about your critiques, either (despite what my 1000+ word rant leads you to believe). No story's perfect. I know I have my own things about the story that could be changed. Most of that rebuttal is just kinda defending the fic being more than just the same story as the source material. All the actual criticism I can see the purpose of or agree with.
While we have no earthly idea why we're on this planet, I'd like to believe the creation, enjoyment, and the discussion of art is why. People across all walks of life and time and space have taken part in at least one of those stages.
I hope I didn't make you feel guilty or anything, either. I swear, I can handle sharing it since we're all just strangers on the internet. Nothing stopped me from just not responding to the review. That, and readers like you pretty much pegged that there's real pain buried in that story, so it's not that much of a secret anyway.
Once again, thank you for all this. I genuinely do appreciate anyone taking the time to put thought into anything I write. Even my long rambly comments.
And I didn't cry! c:
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Funny, I have completely missed the clue in chapter 15. I wrote it off as Sweetie writing it off as flattery and refusing to stop sulking, or some such. There may be other reasons depending on the dynamic between siblings.
I also had trouble interpreting the siren scene because it wasn't clear to me who Renee was originally supposed to represent. I didn't know if the princess in the castle was supposed to represent Rarity or Sweetie, and who that made Renee. In hindsight I suppose Renee had Sweetie's... "relationship with the world" for lack of a better term, but that wasn't clear to me until the very end of the story. It was further muddled by the fact that my RP characters are usually quite different from myself, on purpose, so I could not tell if what was happening to the character would also apply to the player; because of that "you hopeless dyke" didn't give me any definitive information either. And I have completely missed the "I don't want to come out" line - the metaphorical meaning of it is not something that would occur to me off the top of my mind.
So in my case the bluntness in the later chapters was totally justified. Then again, I'm notoriously bad at reading between the lines.
5175993
Great! It's meant to be unclear until the last possible moment. I think even FOME thought it would be Sweetie Belle in the throne room. At least that's what I think that comment implies. So you're not alone there.
I'd like to think it's misleading cause Rarity/Renee wants to believe she'd see her sister at the end. I mean, who wouldn't want to see a loved one alive for one last time, even if it's through metaphor? But no, she can only find closure through herself.
Even better. It'd be boring if every story was fully understood the second it's read. You found a meaning behind it, and it's perfectly reasonable. Your interpretation is as right as any other.
I know I'm an idiot when it comes to interpreting art. It's hard, and it's nice to have someone explore the meaning for you. That's probably why video essays are a big subgenre on YouTube. I'm just grateful that my high school english teacher went through chapters page by page in class discussing potential meanings and interpretations and stressing that any interpretation can be valid.
Thank you for taking the journey and sharing your thoughts on it as well.